CTA TAX CREDIT TOPS DALEY WISH LIST

Michael Kilian, Washington BureauCHICAGO TRIBUNE

A tax credit for Chicago Transit Authority commuters, reclamation of the Chicago lakeshore and swift action on tax incentives to clean up "brownfield" industrial sites were on the wish list Mayor Richard Daley presented Wednesday to the Illinois congressional delegation.

The mayor also urged the state's Democratic and Republican congressmen to defend both the "Brady Bill" gun registration law and the federal ban on assault weapons against repeal efforts by the National Rifle Association and other gun-control opponents.

Calling President Clinton "a friend to cities," the mayor also said he thought Republicans might be responsive to his agenda because they realize they "moved too far to the right" in the last session of Congress and "frightened people."

Daley presented his list to a delegation meeting chaired by Republican Rep. J. Dennis Hastert, who is also House Speaker Newt Gingrich's deputy whip. The mayor spoke to reporters at the city's Washington office before the meeting.

He complained that pressure from the automobile, construction and real estate industries has led to the diversion of federal gasoline tax money and other resources from mass transit systems to more highway construction.

"Public transportation is getting less and less money," he said. "It's at a crisis stage in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, (though) the CTA now serves 38 different suburbs."

He said he'd like to see the system freed from cumbersome federal Transportation Department regulations and receive an operating subsidy in the form of a federal tax credit for individuals who use mass transit.

"It would help people, who spend $3, $4 and $5 a day on mass transit and have a tremendous impact," he said. "It would be an environmental tax credit. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) comes along and says you have to cut pollution down. I say, yes, how do you get rid of the cars? You built the highways."

Daley said Chicago is badly in need of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shoreline protection because of storm damage this year and in the past at Oak Street Beach, 47th Street and Lake Michigan, and the area near the Shedd Aquarium and Soldier Field.

The mayor said he was particularly optimistic about getting bipartisan support in Congress for his "brownfield" initiative because industrial decay and contamination affect Republican constituencies as well.

"Hastert asked me about it," Daley said. "They (Republicans) like this initiative because it goes all over the state, say, along the Illinois River and a lot of towns. The factories moved on. That land is vacant. They can use it, but no one will come in there and clean it up without a tax incentive. That's the main reason there's not been any development over this land."